Got an Email Address? We Got A Number For You!

23 May 2007

The folks at Jangl announced their new service today, which essentially lets you assign a telephone number to an email address! You have to sign up for their service, of course, but what’s cool is that you get a local number on which to call this person. The person doesn’t even have to be a Jangl subscriber!

Call the given number, leave a voicemail, and it shows up in their inbox. The person then clicks on the link and is taken to the Jangl website where they can hear it. If they want to call back, they’ll have to sign up for a Jangl account where they can get a local, private number to call you back on. At the very least, the ability to send someone a voicemail for whom you only know their email address is pretty cool. The fact they can get hooked up with total number privacy on both ends is also a huge plus.

When you establish Jangl numbers by email address, the default is for all calls from that person to go to voicemail. It’s a simple click or two on the Jangl website to change this to also ring your phone. You can also destroy the relationship by simply deleting the contact.

Click to call is now as simple as adding your email address to the end of a URL: http://callme.jangl.com. For example, to call me, you can click on this link and follow the directions.
In addition, they are promising the ability to use SMS with the virtual numbers–something I think is hugely important. I asked for this a while ago, so I’m not surprised it’s not working yet, but I’m sure they’re working on it along with all the other bugs they likely have with this new release.

All in all, this is a far cry from the service they had before. They are lowering the barriers to adoption. Tying it to email is pretty brilliant. I look forward to the next evolution of this service.